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tender perennials

Lily has to be one of the most overused descriptors in horticulture. Go figure, given how aptly it defines so many flowers: the word itself has a trumpeting flare and and if I use my imagination, a sweet fragrance too… Spring is plenty-lily-ful with trout lily, lily of the valley, checkered lilies, and lily-flowering tulips doing their thing, but starting […]

Thank goodness for rainy days. Without them, we stay outside and never get around to tidying the potting shed, defrosting the fridge, or keeping up with the paperwork. (Not to mention how happy the gardens are after a good downpour.) I’m grateful too that Betsy worked on the blog last week because aside from the pleasure of seeing Blithewold’s gardens […]

Given how many wonderful winter-blooming houseplants there are in the world, I find it sort of astonishing that poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) is listed as the best selling houseplant in the US and Canada. But I suppose that fact must be chalked up to a couple things: Poinsettia are festive and fun. What’s not to love about […]

I’m jumping the gun on Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day but I can’t let a week like this one go by without crowing about Blithewold’s gardens — especially the Rose and North Gardens. Actually, I’ll let them speak for themselves. They have much more to say than I can show in these pictures so I really […]

It’s not even June yet but it’s already planting week (month) at Blithewold. We hit the ground digging this week, clocking about 100 plants per hour. It’s not a competition but like every May/June we race against time and and the weather to get everything out of the greenhouse and into the ground before summer’s […]